I always thought that: I was born a Christian; I lived like a Christian; I act like a Christian. I thought that it had always been that way until I came to the turning points of my life…

I remembered that I was at the wee age of six, when something supernatural happened. A heard a very clear voice said to me: ‘Go to the poor.’ It happened out of the blue and I never gave it a second thought.

One day, while I was having a conversation with my father, I just happened to tell him that I heard a male’s voice telling me that he wanted me to help the needy, the helpless. I remembered that my father smiled and explained to me that that was God’s plan for me. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, all I knew was that the mission God gave me was to be an angel for the poor. Ever since that day, God’s mission had always been the core and the goal of my life. Everything I did was to reach that goal.

My family background can be said as quite different from the rest of my peers. My father is a pastor. To me, when I was young, being a child of a pastor is no different than being a child of any other people. But I was wrong. As I grew up, I realized that being a PK (Pastors’ Kid) was no easy task. Wherever I went people were asking me if my dad was Rev. Lau or if I am a PK. I gradually found out that most people think that PKs are holy and pure and very obedient. When I went to school, my teachers tended to joke around saying ‘I am going to tell your dad!’ Slowly, I became annoyed by it and the way people think. I felt like I was living under my father’s shadow. People know me because of my father. I was troubled by others because of my father’s occupation. So, like normal teens, I started to rebel. From sleeping during class, playing truant, pranking Sunday School teachers – hiding away their keys, locking away their teaching materials, cursing, bullying, you name it. I did every ‘bad’ thing there was that shows signs of disobedience. To add on to that, I loved to go to camps and competitions to get as far away I could from home, from the ‘holiness’.

Not only so, as an extrovert and a good listener (glory to God), a lot of my friends love to talk to me about their daily struggles and their negative feelings. So, since a very young age, I always had to not only deal with other people’s stress but also my own. This caused me to be overwhelmed with stress and anxiety sometimes. But due to my personality, I tended to not tell anyone about my own daily struggles and negative feelings.

That period of my life, I was further from God than I thought I was. Apart from going to church, I did no devotion. My relationship with God was only held by a little straw, so thin as if it was going to break apart at any second.

When I was in Form 3, I was under a lot of stress not just because it was my exam year, but also because of the many stresses I had built up since I was very young. I was all alone in this world – or so I thought. My parents never knew this because I always kept a smile on my face, no matter how sunny or dull I felt. I used to scream in my room, muffling it with my pillow. Thoughts of suicide and self-harm constantly ran through my mind. Tears flowed like a broken dam. I cried my heart out. Then God came to me. He told me it was okay. There was no need to hide. He held my hand back from self-harming. I started to talk to him, like to a friend, a father. Whenever I talked to him, I felt great peace and comfort. He lit up my dark cave and showed the way out of the darkness. Like one says, ‘As light comes, darkness fades away.’

I started to change. It wasn’t a change like some other, so fast it was obvious. Nope, it was rather slow, a gradual process. As they say, it is hard to change a bad habit. I was trying my uttermost. I could tell you, without God’s help, it certainly isn’t possible. Just like what Jesus said ‘With humans this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ But the story doesn’t just end here, that was just the beginning.

It was the December of the year 2017. My father was invited to Perth, Australia to preach in AMYC (Australia Methodist Youth Convention) – Chinese. So, obviously, I went along with him. I joined the English version of course. Never did I know how much of an impact it would bring to my life. On the night of the last day, there was an altar call. For the first time in my life, I responded to God’s calling in PUBLIC!! That night, all of us there were filled with the Holy Spirit. We sang and danced and praised the Lord till night came. Still, I was filled with joy and was energetic. I then came to understand that no one is born a Christian, I will have to receive Jesus Christ as my own Savior and be born again to be a true Christian. Now, I am still learning and improving, trying to use my gifts and talents to help others. I believe that through God, the impossible is made possible.

by Esther Lau
Wesley Methodist Church, Sibu